1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image display apparatus and an image display method of displaying an image, and a computer-readable medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a display device for a large number of images is disclosed (see Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2006-268010). The above display device manages the large number of images based on groups of images, classifies the images by the groups, displays images for each group simultaneously, and scrolls the displayed images for each group. According to this display device, a target image may be efficiently retrieved from the large number of images.
However, in the aforementioned conventional display device, when scrolling and displaying the images belonging to each group, the display device firstly displays an image positioned at the head of each group. That is, when retrieving the images belonging to each group, the display device is made to start to retrieve with the image positioned at the head of each group. Therefore, a problem, such that it still takes a long period of time to retrieve the target image, is posed in the conventional display device, for example, when the number of images belonging to each group is large.
To prevent such a problem, it is required to increase the number of the groups. However, the number of images to be simultaneously displayed on a screen, that is, the number of images to be recognized at once by a user is also increased. If the number of images to be simultaneously displayed on a screen is increased, the target image is difficult to recognize, which is similar to a case when images to be retrieved are displayed on the screen as a list of small-sized thumbnail images. Thus, the retrieval efficiency deteriorates if the number of the groups is increased.